Every year we post year-end lists of notable new books in Chinese and in English translation, and of forthcoming translations. Over the next couple weeks we'll be rolling these lists out; see the first of them below!
2019 Year-End Lists
Our News, Your News
Two New “Ethnic” Novels from China for 2020
By Bruce Humes, January 26, '20
Two potentially controversial novels — one by a Uyghur author, and the other by a Tibetan — have recently been published in English. They are part of the Kaleidoscope Series of China’s Ethnic Authors sponsored by China Translation & Publishing House, a dozen or so novels by authors that highlight tales in which non-Han culture, motifs and characters play a key role (民族题材文学).
Patigül’s Bloodline (百年血脉) relates the semi-autobiographical tale of a Xinjiang native, daughter of a Uyghur father and Hui mother, who marries a Han, and struggles to bring up a family in mainstream Chinese society. Told in the first person, it unflinchingly describes her mother’s mental illness, her brother’s agonizing death from an STD and tribulations of a “mixed” marriage. For an English excerpt, visit here.
Tsering Norbu’s Prayers in the Wind (祭语风中) narrates the subsequent life of a Buddhist monk who attempts — unsuccessfully — to exit China in the wake of the 1959 Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama’s flight to India. For an excerpt, visit here.
Warwick Translates Summer School, Chinese workshop
By Nicky Harman, January 23, '20
Registration for the Warwick Translates Summer School has now opened! Details here. It takes place 8-12 July 2020 inclusive, and there will be a Chinese-to-English option, led by Nicky Harman.
James Kidd: Best Books of the 2010s www.scmp.com
Perhaps the most welcome development of all was an English-language translation of Louis "Jin Yong” Cha Leung-yung’s wuxia Condor trilogy, overseen by Anna Holmwood and published by the MacLehose Press. All the concerns of English-speaking editors, who wondered whether readers outside China could cope with Cha’s epic, almost metaphysical fights, melted away in the course of two wonderful novels. A Snake Lies Waiting, part three of a projected 12 books, is due in early 2020. Sadly, Cha died only a few months after part one was released, in 2018.
The success of all these books owes much to an impressive generation of translators, arguably the most famous of whom is Ken Liu. An admired novelist in his own right, he is even more celebrated for his role in this golden age of Chinese science-fiction.
His first act was to translate the Three-Body Problem trilogy, by Liu Cixin, which has become a global phenomenon since part one appeared in 2014 (six years after the Chinese version).
Paul French: The Chinese Intellectual Memorialized in Oxford chinachannel.org
On Saturday June 29, 2019, Britain’s third plaque to a Chinese person – the writer and artist Chiang Yee (蒋彝) – was unveiled in the university town of Oxford.
Du Fu KFC www.atlasobscura.com
Du Fu, the eighth-century Chinese poet now lauded as one of the greatest wordsmiths who ever lived, resided in a humble thatched hut in Chengdu at the peak of his literary life. He wrote lyrically about cooking cold noodles garnished with the leaves of the scholartree, but he never had a fried chicken sandwich or a Pepsi. Yet at a KFC in the heart of Chengdu, a holographic pyramid beams 3-D images of his hut in spring, summer, winter, and fall.
Xiao Hong: A Look at her Interpreters, English, French and Cinematic mychinesebooks.com
In a new essay on author Xiao Hong (萧红), Mialaret points out that neither film director Ann Hui nor literary translator Howard Goldblatt seem to have done justice to her work.
Mialaret also notes a 2019 French translation of her 《呼蘭河傳》, Souvenirs de Hulan He by Simone Cross-Morea.
An Amdo Tibetan Wedding Speech: Poetics of Tibetan Secular Oratory journal.oraltradition.org
On an auspicious day, two families from Ne’u na Village, a small village along the Yellow River in Western China’s Qinghai Province, gather to celebrate a wedding. The day has been chosen specifically for this purpose. Midway through the wedding banquet, a man stands before the crowd already so drunk that his words are almost unintelligible, and he speaks. He begins with an invocation to several deities, and then a statement about how auspicious this day is and how it has been chosen specifically for this purpose. After describing the beautiful dress of the bride down to the smallest hair ornament, he begins to describe Tibet and its geographic and historical relations with Nepal and China. Next, with exquisite imagery, he tells of the unique physical environment of the Tibetan plateau, and finally he discusses the beauty and auspiciousness of the very village in which the wedding is being held. At every turn this area and its people are described with detailed references to the religious and natural worlds in which Tibetans live. The speech is the highlight of the wedding in Ne’u na. Following the speech, guests offer gifts to the new couple—first from the groom’s side, then from the bride’s—and people from both sides begin antiphonal singing until late into the night.
"One Child Nation": Cannot be displayed because it violates related laws and regulations www.thedailybeast.com
Most of China’s major entertainment publications thoroughly cover the Oscars each year, so when the Academy announced its 15 shortlisted films for the 2020 Best Documentary Feature award, many Chinese publications covered it. But each paper had a peculiarity in common: they each listed only 14 films.
One Child Nation, the documentary about China’s one-child policy that I co-directed with my friend Jialing Zhang, is included in this year’s shortlist, but no Chinese publication has made any mention of it. Any person living in China who might be following the Oscars would have no way of knowing that a Chinese film is a contender in this year’s documentary category. Even for people who have heard of the film, searching for the Chinese translation of the film’s title (独生子女国度 or 独生之国) within China generates no results, except for this message: “the result of this search cannot be displayed because it violates related laws and regulations.”
Nüshu: Hunan's "Female-only" Chinese Script qz.com
When I was a university student in Beijing in the early ’90s, I stumbled upon an academic article by Zhao Liming, a professor at Tsinghua University’s Chinese language department, about a little-known script used only by women in a corner of the southern province of Hunan. Days after, I bought the small book she had written on the subject, Nüshu—A Surprising Discovery, and read it as fast as my eyes, and my Chinese reading skills, allowed. I was hooked: The word nüshu refers to a script used by women in Jiangyong—a small county in the province’s southernmost tip—to transcribe the local lingo. As soon as I could, I made the first of many trips there.
2020 Forthcoming Translations
By David Haysom, December 28, '19
Now you've read our 2019 lists of English translations and books published in Chinese, here's a preview of some of the translations that will be hitting your shelves in 2020!
Release of American Books Has Come to Virtual Standstill www.nytimes.com
The Communist Party’s publicity department told publishers this year that the total number of books getting approvals would shrink, that domestic authors would be favored and that titles that promoted the party and China’s capitalism-infused version of socialism would be most encouraged.
A New Translation of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" www.nytimes.com
If the enemy commander is avid for advantage, use it to lure him in; If he is volatile, seize upon that; If he is solid, prepare well for battle; If he is strong, evade him. If he is angry, rile him. If he is unpresuming, feed his arrogance.
2019 Publications in Chinese
By David Haysom, December 21, '19
As the year comes to a close, we’ve asked authors, translators, editors, and other friends of Paper Republic to recommend notable books published in Chinese in 2019 – translations into Chinese as well as original works. The resultant list gives an insight into the titles that have made an impression this year – and perhaps offers a preview of some of the books we can hope to see available in English soon!
Best Book of 1993: To Live granta.com
I originally read the novel in Chinese, for a college class in Shanghai: ‘Introduction to World Literature’. The professor chose ten literary works from different languages for us to read and discuss. I remember falling in love with Rynosuke Akutagawa’s short story collection, Marguerite Duras’s The Lover and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. When it came to the final book, my professor handed out To Live with a broad smile, and suggested that Yu may be China’s greatest contemporary novelist. I share that view.
2019 Translations from Chinese
By Nicky Harman, December 13, '19
Here’s our roll-call of books translated from Chinese in 2019
There’s (almost) something for everyone this year – scifi and Singapore fiction have a strong showing, as do pre-modern classics, and even one self-help book. But still, fewer translated works were published in 2019 than in 2018 (31, as against 40-odd in 2018 ) Worst of all, only four of the list below are women writers. Every year, novels that are funny, sharp, moving and entertaining are published in the Chinese-speaking world – there is plenty for publishers and literary agents to seek out. We at Paper Republic continue to work hard to bring our favourite novels to their attention. (Watch out for our list of 2019 publications in Chinese, to be posted next week.) Read on
The Pro-active Translator & Chinese Lit in Translation
By Bruce Humes, December 8, '19
First, it was Howard Goldblatt and his renditions of Mo Yan's novels that helped the Shandong storyteller win the (once coveted) Nobel Prize in Literature. Goldblatt has made it no secret that he edited the text in order to heighten readability.
Now, via an interview with Ken Liu in the New York Times, Why Is Chinese Sci-Fi Everywhere Now? Ken Liu Knows, we learn that translator Liu played a similar role in making Liu Cixin's The Three-body Problem popular in the West:
Paper Republic London party
By Nicky Harman, December 4, '19
On 29th November 2019, Paper Republic launched as a UK-registered charity promoting Chinese literature in translation. We are, as you may know, a virtual organization, with a team of volunteers spread from America to the UK and China. But to celebrate our new non-profit status, we decided to have a fund-raising party in the literary heart of London. The raffle prizes (tea, maotai, books, books and more books, signed by any of their translators who happened to be present) went like hot cakes, and the pub room was jam-packed and raucous. Inevitably, because our supporters are spread all over the world, there were some familiar faces who couldn’t be there and were sadly missed, though Eric Abrahamsen, our founder and Chair of Trustees, made a special trip over from Seattle. But now we’ve got the party bug, we hope to host more literary parties in the US and China in the near future.
Two Chinese books shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize www.thebookseller.com
Congratulations to
-- Natascha Bruce (translator) and Jeremy Tiang (editor) for the translation of Lonely Face by Yeng Pway Ngon (Balestier Press)
-- William Spence (translator) and Tomasz Hoskins (editor) for the translation of The Promise: Love and Loss in Modern China by XinRan Xue (I B Tauris)
The TA First Translation Prize is shared between the translator and editor (recognising the importance of a good editor). The winners will be announced on 12 Feb 2020.
Horrific true crime - massacre in the Pacific www.wordswithoutborders.org
"Massacre in the Pacific: A Personal Account" - by Du Qiang, tr. Nicky Harman and Emily Jones, in the latest issue of Words Without Borders.
In December 2010, the Lurongyu 2682 (a Chinese squid-jigging vessel) set out for Chile with a crew of 33. Eight months later, there were only 11 of them left. They were tried and charged with 22 murders. Du Qiang interviewed the first crew member to be released after completing his sentence.
Yan Ge on the Banquet tradition www.nytimes.com
The ultimate purpose of a banquet is to get its diners drunk. Only in this way can we connect and become friends, squeeze each other’s shoulders and make dirty jokes. When it goes wrong, it can be ugly: Fights can break out; women might be abused for sport. But when it goes right, mistakes are forgiven; the diners perspire, devour, quaff and sing together, and then, only then, will business be done.
At the party, it soon became obvious that the purpose of this banquet was to get me to sign my next novel with this publishing house. And very quickly, it was clear that the deal would not be sealed: Not only had I refused to drink, but I also disclosed apologetically that I had already signed with a different press.
Beijing Dec 9-15: Ethnic Minorities Film Festival Schedule mp.weixin.qq.com
It doesn't say which ones feature English sub-titles, but most won awards abroad and have English on the poster, so I'd assume most or perhaps all do. Some will also have partial or full Chinese sub-titles, since they aren't necessarily in Mandarin.
Looks like 5 -- oops 7, writes someone in the know -- of the 14 are by Tibetan director Pema Tseden. One would have expected a few focusing on Uyghurs, but that minority has recently been reclassified as , erh, "problematic."
For Chinese notes re: plot and director, click on link.
Here's the schedule:
12.09 19:00 气球 万 玛 才 旦 2019 102mins ● ▲ ✦
12.10 14:00 撞死 了 一 只羊 万 玛 才 旦 2018 87mins ▲ ✦
12.10 19:00 家 在 水草 丰茂 的 地方 李睿 珺 2014 103mins ✦
12.11 14:00 静静 的 嘛呢 石 万 玛 才 旦 2005 102mins ▲ ✦
12.11 19:00 老狗 万 玛 才 旦 2011 93mins ▲ ✦
12.12 14:00 行 歌 坐 月 吴 娜 2011 90mins
12.12 19:00 寻找 智 美 更 登 万 玛 才 旦 2009 112mins ▲
12.13 14:00 五彩 神箭 万 玛 才 旦 2014 88mins ▲
12.13 19:00 碧罗 雪山 刘杰 2010 93mins
12.14 14:00 塔洛 万 玛 才 旦 2015 123mins ▲
12.14 16:30 清水 里 的 刀子 王学博 2016 93mins
12.14 19:00 盗 马贼 田壮壮 1986 88mins
12.15 14:00
拉姆 与 嘎贝 松 太 加 2019
110mins ✦
12.15 16:30 第 一次 的 离别 王丽娜 2018 90mins ✦
12.15 19:00 黑骏马 谢 飞 1997 105mins ● ✦
我们 的 钢 嘎哈拉 ~ 《黑骏马》 ： 二十 三年 后 ~ 姚祖彪 2019 40mins 纪录片 +
Translating Women, Building Bridges interview series blogs.exeter.ac.uk
...I’m very wary about making generalizations ... but I think women writers all acknowledge the fact that they have less visibility. There’s certainly a dominance of men amongst writers and publishers in China. And the publishers are the ones who will package someone’s book and try to sell the rights to western publishers for translation.
Database for Chinese Lit in Spanish Translation
By Bruce Humes, November 16, '19
The Spanish-language database here is searchable in several ways:
Title in Spanish
Original title in Chinese
Author
Translator
Genre
Entries for each of the above are also listed alphabetically, so you can scroll for a look at what is in the database even if you don't have a particular book/author/translator in mind.
It is not anywhere as complete as MCLC's one in English, but still useful.
Wikileaks, China at last: NYT's Bilingual Report on 400 Leaked Documents re: XJ Crackdown www.nytimes.com
For the English version -- supported by several pages of the Chinese original -- visit:
For the Chinese translation of the English reportage -- which appears less complete, since PDFs of the Chinese originals are not included -- visit:
https://www.nytimes.com/zh/2019/11/16/world/asia/xinjiang-documents-chinese.html
Read up, translators. This is a treasure house of translated terms that are likely to be popping up more often in Chinese writing to come . . .
New Magazine Devoted to Literary Translations classicalstudies.org
We are planning to launch the first issue of Ancient eXchanges (title yet to be finalized), which will be an online journal devoted to literary translations of ancient texts. We envision the journal to be like the current eXchanges: Journal of Literary Translation, but devoted to literary translations of ancient Greek and Latin texts to begin with, and expanding to include Sanskrit, Sumerian, Classical Chinese, and other ancient languages.
Interview with Michelle Deeter
By Michelle Deeter, November 9, '19
Hybrid Pub Scout, the podcast that is mapping the frontier between traditional and indie publishing, interviewed Michelle Deeter about how a book gets translated. The episode is fun and informative, and includes a book giveaway!
[Episode 32 Hybrid Pub Scout] https://hybridpubscout.com/episode-32-book-translator-michelle-deeter/
Two Lines Press: That We May Live – Speculative Chinese Fiction www.catranslation.org
A woman impulsively decides to visit her grandmother in a scene reminiscent of “Little Red Riding Hood,” only to find herself in a town of women obsessed with a mysterious fermented beverage. An aging and well-respected female newscaster at a provincial TV station finds herself caught up in an illicit affair with her boss, who insists that she recite the news while they have sex. An anonymous city prone to vanishing storefronts begins to plant giant mushrooms for its citizens to live in, with disastrous consequences.
That We May Live includes work from:
- Dorothy Tse, translated by Natascha Bruce
- Enoch Tam, translated by Jeremy Tiang
- Zhu Hui, translated by Michael Day
- Chan Chi Wa, translated by Audrey Heijns
- Chen Si’an, translated by Canaan Morse
- Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang
New Emperor's Political Correctness Campaign Snares Beijing Bookworm www.thebeijinger.com
After almost two decades in the business of providing the city's book enthusiasts with food for thought, beloved Sanlitun institution The Bookworm will close its doors on Monday, Nov 11.
An Author with a Translation Strategy for His Own Works www.nippon.com
“Translation strategy has played a part in Murakami’s international acclaim,” says Associate Professor Kōno Shion of Sophia University. “His first English translator, Alfred Birnbaum, grabbed the attention of readers by bringing the pop image to the fore. Then, the translations of Jay Rubin, as a Japanese literary researcher, faithfully conveyed the meaning of the original text, helping to foster wider appreciation for Murakami’s writing style. Like Kawabata and Ōe, Murakami has been blessed with excellent translators. And he has always had translation in mind while writing and in his forming of a tight network with his agent and editors in the English-speaking world.”
“My Favourite Children’s Books” – children in China vote for their Top 30 books of 2019 chinesebooksforyoungreaders.wordpress.com
“My Favourite Children’s Books” was initiated by Shenzhen Children’s Library 深圳少年儿童图书馆 in 2014, and this year’s list was the sixth. The 2019 awards were co-organised by 39 provincial and city libraries. From January 2019, 5455 books were recommended by 129 institutions and 207 individuals. A panel of 9 experts was involved. 100,000 books were purchased and distributed to 312 schools in 39 provinces and cities across China. A total of 1,309,111 votes were cast.
A total of 30 books (2019年我最喜爱的童书30强) have been selected, 10 in each category: literature, picture books, information books.
Victor Hugo's Chinese Adventures www.eurasiareview.com
Hugo’s current prominence across the People’s Republic of China is particularly intriguing. How can a man linked to a song that has been key to anti-Beijing struggles in Hong Kong since the 2014 Umbrella Movement – one removed from Chinese music-streaming platforms – simultaneously be celebrated in China’s capital, where his many fans include Xi Jinping himself? The answer lies in the multifaceted writings of Hugo spread by globalization, relaying the struggle taking place in China and Hong Kong about what it means today to be both Chinese and a citizen of the world.
—Amy Hawkins and Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Paper Republic Charity Launch – Update!
By David Haysom, October 31, '19
On Friday November 29th we’re going to be celebrating our new status as a charity with a party at the Coach and Horses (29 Greek Street, London, W1D 5DH). In addition to drinks, book talk, and a raffle, we can now confirm that Eric Abrahamsen, founder and trustee of Paper Republic, will be making a rare UK appearance! Come along to find out more about what we’ve been up to and what we have planned, and learn about the most exciting developments happening in Chinese Literature today.
Sign up now on Eventbrite to join the party.
If you can’t make it, you can still make a contribution through Paypal here (even if you don’t have a Paypal account). Everything you donate will go directly towards supporting the work we do:
- bringing the best works of Chinese literature into English
- supporting emerging translators
- maintaining the internet’s best resource for Chinese literature